


question me the story of my life

by greywardenblue



Series: polished with friction [5]
Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: F/M, October "Toby" Daye & Simon Torquill Bonding, Parental Simon Torquill, Past Simon Torquill/Tybalt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25116346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywardenblue/pseuds/greywardenblue
Summary: Toby learns about Simon and Tybalt's past from both men, through rewritten scenes from The Winter Long and The Brightest Fell. Gillian learns about family drama, including her kidnapper being her mother's cousin, and Rayseline's kidnapper being Toby's step-father, and only some of her grandmother's misdeeds. Family in Faerie has always been complicated.
Relationships: Gillian Daye Marks & October Daye, October "Toby" Daye & August Torquill, October "Toby" Daye & Simon Torquill, October "Toby" Daye/Tybalt
Series: polished with friction [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1455481
Comments: 9
Kudos: 15





	question me the story of my life

_The Winter Long_

“Did the same person bind you?”

“...I have to leave.”

Toby watched Simon turn and try to escape the Library as fast as his stiff leg let him, but he didn’t get very far.

“It sounds like you got everything you wished for,” Tybalt said in a low voice, with so much bitterness that Toby looked at him in surprise. Simon stopped suddenly and stood still for a few moments without turning around, perhaps contemplating an answer - then he kept walking without a word.

“What the hell was that?” Toby asked once Simon was gone. Tybalt blinked suddenly, like he was just returning from a deep thought.

“What do you mean?”

“All that… snarling at each other! No, you were snarling at him, and he was just…” Toby hesitated. Simon almost seemed like he was just trying to make conversation, but it must have been an act to confuse her. Why else would he bring up September like that? “And what about that last comment? What was _that_ about? He said you knew each other, but clearly there’s more to the story.”

Tybalt’s eyes flickered to a point behind Toby, and when she turned, she saw he was watching Quentin. To his credit, the boy turned away and pretended to be very interested in a nearby bookshelf as soon as his knight’s eyes fell on him. Toby turned back to Tybalt.

“Well?”

“The last time I talked to Simon Torquill, I was still a Prince of the Fogbound Cats, back in Londinium,” Tybalt said slowly, like he was leading up to something unpleasant. Toby waited patiently for him to continue, and after a beat, he did. “Specifically, he was informing me that he was ending our relationship and following your mother into the New World.”

Toby stared.

“Ending your… relationship?” she asked quietly.

Tybalt reached out and squeezed her hand, and she allowed it without squeezing back or pulling away. “Our… romantic relationship.”

She’d guessed as much the first time, but it was still difficult to believe. “So the thing he said about his sister…”

“... was also true. September was my first great love, and Amandine was Simon’s. At the time, neither of the ladies seemed likely to reciprocate, and the two of us sought each other for comfort and shared misery.” Tybalt was still holding her hand, but he was looking away. “It started as a distraction, and I would be lying if I said that it didn’t turn more serious than we expected. But at the end of the day, we were secondary to each other. The last time we spoke…” Tybalt squeezed her hand, and he looked so pained that she almost asked him to stop speaking. “He said I was refusing to accept that September was happy with her husband and would never want me, and when I didn’t deny it, he told me he was leaving. Not only me, but Londinium as well.”

“With my mother,” Toby said, her shock finally fading enough to form a coherent thought. “Wait. Does that mean you knew that they were married?”

Tybalt shook his head. “I only knew that a long time ago, when we still lived in England, the Torquill brothers were both smitten with Amandine and would have followed her anywhere. But at the time she didn’t clearly favour either, and the next time I saw them again, Sylvester has moved on and settled down with a different wife. I had no reason to think she chose Simon in the end.”

Toby nodded slowly. This was a lot to take in, but in the end, the important part was that Tybalt didn’t lie to her about something that big. She wasn’t sure she could have forgiven that. “I’m… not enthusiastic about this,” she admitted. “But I meant what I said about you having feelings for my aunt. It was centuries ago, and it doesn’t matter anymore. And… I suppose this doesn’t make a difference either. It’s just… somewhat weirder, because of my relationship with Simon.” 

_Somewhat_ was an understatement. But Tybalt looked relieved, and he raised her hands to his lips to kiss them. “Little fish, you may not be my first love, but right now you are the only one. And you will remain so, as long as you’ll have me.”

Toby squeezed his hands back, then took a deep breath and turned towards Quentin. “It’s safe to come back now,” she said, loud enough for her squire to hear, then spoke to both of them. “We have a lot of research to do.”

\--

_The Brightest Fell_

“Does Sylvester know?”

“Does Sylvester know what?” Tybalt murmured into her hair, his fingers gently caressing her back as they lay in bed together.

“About you and Simon.”

Tybalt’s fingers stopped on her back.

“Ah.”

Toby waited patiently, and after a while he sighed, his hand sliding down to her waist to rest there. “He didn’t, while it lasted. In fact, we went to great lengths to keep it from him, mostly on Simon’s insistence. But he must have learned it from someone over the centuries, given that he accused me of deliberately seducing his family members a few years ago, after he thought we had slept together.”

Toby sat up. “What?”

“Have I truly not told you about this? The night I escorted you home and I answered your phone--”

“Yes! Yes, I remember. Sylvester asked me about it the next day and it was mortifying.” She frowned. “He really thought we had slept together?”

“That’s the impression I got, yes.”

Toby groaned and headbutted his shoulder. “Kill me now.”

“He wasn’t entirely wrong… he was just a bit ahead of the times.”

“That explains why he was so surprised when I started dating Connor, at least.”

Tybalt hummed. “Are you sure that didn’t have more to do with the fact that the man had been married to his daughter not long before?”

Toby punched him in the shoulder, and his laugh was only interrupted by an enthusiastic knock on the door.

“Okay, lovebirds!” May exclaimed, pushing herself into the room without waiting for an answer. “Tybalt, out! Toby needs to get ready for her bachelorette party, and you can’t see her in her dress.”

“I think that’s just the wedding dress, May,” Toby said, but her sister only scoffed.

“That doesn’t matter! The bachelorette party isn’t for the groom either. Now, get out of bed and start getting ready, or we’ll be late.”

Tybalt sighed and pressed a kiss to Toby’s head, then they both got up and let May sweep them away. All was well.

\--

“Tybalt is a good man,” Simon said suddenly as they walked, away from Amandine’s tower and away from Shadowed Hills.

Toby frowned. “I know.”

Simon’s hand made a dismissive gesture that she couldn’t interpret. When he spoke again, it sounded like he was talking more to himself than to either of them. “He has always been a good man, even when he wore another name. People around me would look at him and see a beast, and yet I saw in his eyes that our cruel practices were more bestial than he ever could be. He loved his family dearly. Well, he loved his sisters.”

Toby listened in silence, intrigued despite herself. She suddenly wasn’t sure if Tybalt ever mentioned having sisters at all.

“He’d always said I should have been born as a fox,” Simon continued, amused. “He loved the theatre. At first, I thought…” He hesitated for a moment, but pushed on. “I thought it was beneath us, to mingle with humans like that. I thought he was lowering himself. But he had brought me to some of the plays, and it was more fun than I’d remembered having in a long while.”

“You went together?” Toby asked. She remembered what Tybalt told her back in the Library. That felt like forever ago now, even though it had only been a year. “On a date?”

For a few moments, Simon stared at her in surprise. Then he continued. “Once, we all went together. My siblings and our friend Morane, too. I… I truly don’t remember which play that was, but I remember us in our human disguises, laughing as we played a role in the audience too.”

“My mother didn’t go,” Toby said, filling in the blanks. She didn’t miss how the man sidestepped her question about the date, but she didn’t push. Simon smiled sadly.

“No, she didn’t. I suppose playing the role of a human didn’t appeal to her, even for a few hours.” His smile disappeared quickly. “My point is... “ He trailed off again, then cleared his throat. “What I want to say is that I cannot… I cannot imagine the pain you are in right now, and I would not dare offend you by implying that I do. Yet still… I wish with all my heart he comes home safe to you.”

“It’s your _wife_ who took him,” Toby snapped, anger building in her again. “It’s _your_ wife. If you ever loved him--” Simon flinched like she’d struck him, but she went on. “If he ever mattered to you, why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell her to give him back?”

Simon turned his head away. “You truly believe she would have listened to me?”

“You could have _tried_!” Toby shouted.

“And I would have likely made it worse!” Simon shouted back. He seemed to have regretted raising his voice immediately, and he took a few moments to choose his next words carefully, his voice even again. “October, I have loved your mother for centuries, and I know her better than you’ve had the time to. She may have loved me once, perhaps she still does, but I have wronged her, and she is not quick to forgive. I wasn’t a good husband to her, and…”

Simon’s mouth still moved, like he was trying to get the words out, but nothing would come. It didn’t look like he was being held back by the geas - it looked like he was being held back by something much stronger. Even now, he didn’t want to speak ill of the woman he loved. Toby could relate to that, or at least she could have related to it before Amandine’s last stunt.

“And she wasn’t a good wife to you,” Toby said quietly. “And she wasn’t a good mother to me.” Like with most things, it was easier to say it when she was saying it on behalf of someone else.

Simon said nothing, but he reached out to take October’s hand in his own. She let him squeeze it once before she pulled it away, and wondered how many warring emotions a person can feel at once without bursting.

“You think if I had asked her to spare Tybalt, she would have let him go,” Simon said quietly. “I think she would have hurt him more, to spite me. Forgive me for not taking that risk.”

“Why didn’t you just marry Patrick?” The question stumbled out of her mouth. Behind them, Quentin let out a surprised yelp - which made Toby remember he was there at all, the thought making her flush in embarrassment -, and Simon laughed.

“Do you want the honest answer or the diplomatic one?” 

Toby frowned. “We already came this far, you might as well tell me the honest one.”

“I was already married when I met Patrick. I did raise the idea of going my parents’ way, but your mother is not fond of sharing.” Simon sighed, but this time it felt like he was lighter after the confession.

“Your parents’ way?” Toby asked. 

“Sylvester never mentioned it?”

The question was innocent, but it still felt like a stab. Toby shrugged her shoulder, pretending it didn’t matter. 

“No, he wouldn’t have. It was a very long time ago.” Simon clasped his hands together. “Well, I suppose it falls to me, then. You see, I had two mothers…”

\--

Tybalt didn’t talk after he came home. He walked on two legs, but he spoke as if he walked on four: with his blinks, his touch, low hisses and purrs. He would curl up on the couch with October and rest his head on her shoulder, and if she noticed that he always closed his eyes, she didn’t say anything.

That was fine. She had lived with cats since she came back from the pond, and she had loved this man almost since then, too. She would know him even if he didn’t say a word.

After a few days, he spoke a full sentence to ask what happened to Simon. October told him, and he didn’t speak again for the rest of the night. When dawn came, he lay on the bed and she curled around him, pressing herself to his back, wishing she could share his pain.

\--

_The Unkindest Tide_

“Wait, stop.” Gillian raised her hand with a frown, and Toby went quiet, letting her speak. “I lost track of that. You’re saying that the scary yellow-eyed woman who kidnapped me is actually your cousin?”

Toby flinched. “Legally, yes. But she’s closer to you in age. You… you played together once as children, actually. Really, the word ‘generation’ stops having meaning when it comes to Faerie. My fiancé is the same age as my uncle and step-father.”

“That’s super weird,” Gillian said, still frowning.

“You get used to it.”

“So, to recap. Your mother’s husband, your stepfather, is not actually evil but he was working for an evil woman--”

“Jury’s still out on the not actually evil part,” May said as she passed them on her way upstairs.

“Right, so the guy who might-or-might-not be evil turned you into a fish for fourteen years and also threw his own niece into some dark place, so now we are both traumatised and she chose to deal with her own trauma by kidnapping me and traumatizing me even more?”

Toby suspected this conversation would be difficult, but reality was somehow surpassing her expectations. “... Yes.”

“Also your mom kidnapped your fiancé and your sister’s girlfriend, and also your sister used to be your death omen, and also one of your aunts is a terrifying sea witch and the other is a pirate captain?”

“Yes. I also have many more aunts and uncles than that, but those are the only two we actually like, so you don’t have to remember all the others.”

“Acacia,” Quentin said.

Toby nodded. “Right, I keep forgetting. Acacia is fine, too.” Of course, she was too closely associated with Blind Michael in Toby’s mind, which is why it was more comfortable to forget about her most of the time.

Gillian nodded as well, surprisingly calm. “I have only one question.”

“... Only one?” That was surprising.

She took a deep breath. “What the _fuck_ is wrong with this family?”

Ah. That was less surprising.

“We ask that question every day,” Quentin said, while Toby quietly wondered if she should tell Gillian about Miranda being her great-grandmother. (She decided against it. That was something Miranda herself needed to share, and she wasn’t going to sabotage their relationship, however tempting it was.)

“A lot,” Toby said finally. “The relations are… complicated, and there’s a lot of hurt everywhere, but we’re working on it.”

“Are there any therapists in Faerie? Because if not, I might go into that business. Sounds like I could get super rich.”

Toby laughed. “You’d have many clients… _if_ they actually went, which I’m really not sure about. But who knows, I get by well enough as a detective.”

Quentin plopped down on the couch next to Gillian. “Did you know Connor is Toby’s ex but also he was in an arranged marriage to Rayseline?

“Connor? You mean _our_ Connor?”

That made Toby pause. When Gillian became a selkie, she wondered about the irony, and the daughter she could have had with Connor… and now she was referring to him as hers, as in belonging to the Roane. It was almost funny how things came full circle. 

“Yep,” Quentin said, unbothered by Toby’s momentary crisis. “The marriage was annulled when Rayseline tried to kill her own parents, then he dated Toby again for a while, then Rayseline elfshot him, and by the time we woke him up, Toby was engaged to Tybalt.”

Toby flinched. “Yes, that was… awkward. In my defense, nobody thought there would ever be a cure for elfshot. I was convinced that by the time Connor woke up, I would be old and grey, if alive at all. He wasn’t dead, but from my perspective it was almost the same, because I’d never see him again.”

Gillian hugged a pillow to her body and digested that for a moment. “That’s rough,” she said. “But you… I mean, we…”

Quentin’s eyes met Gillian’s and he shook his head a tiny bit. The girl went silent, and Toby decided not to press her to continue. She had an idea what Gillian was going to say, and she wasn’t ready for that question yet.

“Anyway,” Gillian said, eager to change the topic. “Chelsea Ames. She’s not a changeling, is she? Even though her mother is human?”

Toby nodded. “She used to be a changeling, and when her Choice came, she chose Faerie. You know each other?”

“We met a couple of times on campus. I didn’t know she was fae, obviously. But she came up to me to say hi a few days ago and told me that her mom lives at your uncle’s… estate?”

“Knowe.”

“Right, that. Also, what’s up with your fiancé turning into a cat?”

“He _is_ a cat, just not a mortal one.” There were footsteps from the direction of the hall, and Toby spoke without looking. “May, do you think there’s--”

“Wrong month,” August said.

Toby turned on her heel and reached automatically to her side, where a knife would have been if she actually carried weapons at home. Maybe she should start. “How did you get in?”

August gave her an unimpressed look. “I walked in. The door wasn’t locked and the wards were down.”

Toby crossed her arms and hoped her disapproving look was convincing. “Normal people still knock, you know.”

“Why?” August asked.

“I--” For a moment, Toby wondered if it was worth trying to explain that not everything revolved around her, then decided to let it go. “Nevermind. What are you doing here?”

August’s gaze briefly stopped on Quentin, then continued to Gillian. “Who is that?” she demanded instead of answering Toby’s question.

Gillian crossed her arms as well, hauntingly similar to October’s gesture. Toby knew that if she had noticed that, she would have stopped. “Excuse me? I was here first. If anything, I should be asking Toby who _you_ are.” Despite how recently she joined Faerie, Gillian looked at home on the couch sitting with Quentin, the boy still wearing the clothes he’d slept in. Toby allowed herself a moment to take that in before clearing her throat.

“August, this is Gillian, my daughter. Gillian, this is your Aunt August.”

August made a face. “Don’t call me an Aunt, it makes me sound old.”

“You’re more than a hundred years older than me,” Toby reminded her.

“Yes, but you’re a changeling. For your kind, sixty years is already half your lifetime. Unless you shift, of course.”

Toby flinched, but Quentin saved her from having to answer that with anything. “Is there a reason you are here, or are you just practicing how to look down on people so you can get a treat from Mommy when you go home?”

Gillian snorted and August gaped at Quentin before turning to Toby. “You’re just going to let your squire talk to me like that?”

Quentin and Toby looked at each other, and Toby shrugged. “I could tell him to mind his manners, but then who’s going to mind yours? Besides, he’s a pureblood like you, so that makes him your equal.” It made him more than that, but neither August and Gillian knew that. They might have gotten a little less strict with the secret after Toby learned the truth, but that didn’t mean she could just blurt it out anytime.

“I’m a Firstborn’s daughter,” August said.

“So am I. So is Luna. Do you want a medal? Because you’re not getting one in this house. We value actions here, not birth.”

August opened her mouth, then closed it again. Finally, she said, “Why is your daughter a selkie?”

“Question of the year,” Gillian murmured, then raised her voice to add, “Also, I’m a Roane. At least get it right.”

“It’s a little complicated. Ask the Luidaeg,” Toby said. “You still haven’t told us why you’re here, though.”

August glanced at Gillian and Quentin again, like she wasn’t sure she wanted to talk with them in the room. 

“Anything you say, I’ll tell Quentin anyway,” Toby said.

“What about me?” Gillian asked.

Toby paused. “That… depends more on what she’s going to say.” Gillian rolled her eyes at the answer, and Toby felt a pang of guilt - but Gillian already saw too much of the bad side of Faerie, and Toby didn’t necessarily want to shock her with more details about their awful family life.

“Ugh, you lot are insufferable,” August said with some disgust. “Look. I’m here because I heard you know Patrick Twy-- Lorden. I want to meet with him, but I don’t want to walk into Saltmist unannounced.”

“One does not simply _walk_ into Saltmist, anyway,” Quentin said. “You’d have to swim.”

Toby raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking me for a favor?” August paled at the suggestion, and Toby decided to take mercy on her. “Quentin, didn’t you say you wanted to visit Dean today?”

Quentin, who had said nothing like that but thought it all the time, shrugged. “Sure,” he said, then did something else that surprised Toby. “Hey, Gillian, do you want to come with us to visit Dean and his parents?”

“The punchy mermaid people who got arrested?” Gillian asked hesitantly. “They’re on our side though, right?”

Quentin nodded. “Yes. Dianda and Patrick are Toby’s friends.”

“Okay, then. I guess it would be fun to see some mermaids.”

Toby turned back to August, ignoring Quentin’s hushed explanation of what a Merrow was and why they didn’t necessarily like being called mermaids. “Well, looks like we’re going over to Goldengreen to visit Count Lorden and his family. Do you want to come along?”

August nodded hesitantly.

“Great. Quentin, go put some clothes on and tell May we’re leaving. Gilly, grab your stuff.” 

As the teenagers left to prepare for the trip, Toby stayed alone in the living room with August. Toby couldn’t help but remember that the last time they were inside the house like this, they were fighting in a way that might have been deadly for anyone else.

“I should have made you swear,” Toby murmured, more to herself than to August.

“What was that?” August turned to look at her, and that’s when Toby realized she’d been looking around the room.

“I should have made you swear you will not harm anyone under my roof,” Toby repeated a bit louder. “I didn’t make Mother swear the last time she was here, and we both remember how that ended.”

To her credit, August looked sheepish at that. “I’m not here to… kidnap anyone. Or… turn them into animals.”

Toby had trouble taking her at her word. When August took a step, she tensed, but the woman simply walked around to look at the bookshelves, then the stack of DVDs and the television itself. The latter seemed to confuse her more, if the frown on her face was anything to go by. But she didn’t ask, and Toby didn’t feel like explaining.

If she was lucky, they would all survive this trip.


End file.
